The stark portrait of a young woman who looks together from the outside but is falling apart on the inside, although the...
A dancer and choreographer describes her break with reality after finding her birth mother.
Dennis opens her debut memoir dressed in a sexy black lace dress in a Southern California restaurant in 2001. She’s convinced she’s a spy who piloted one of the planes that flew into the twin towers on 9/11. She’s there to find the head of the evil Illuminati, but instead she finds an older man in a gray suit who wants to take her to Cuba and impregnate her. After this jarring but compelling opening, the memoir flashes back to her childhood and young-adult years, beginning with her adoption as a baby and eventually, in her early 20s, meeting her birth mother. During those years, Dennis develops a love of dance, maintains a strong GPA, falls in love and struggles with eating disorders. Her adoptive parents, a strongly Catholic mother and a father who suffers from depression and Asperger’s syndrome, are easily fooled by their daughter’s practiced facade of perfection. Teachers, classmates and friends also seem oblivious to the many warning signs of the narrator’s impending breakdown. Short, easily digestible chapters offer believable dialogue, succinct descriptions of events and candid observations. The author adds a sense of ongoing drama by often ending chapters with a single, searing line that hints at what’s to come: “And then, whether or not I truly am, convince a judge that I’m sane.” The memoir ends full circle with a deeper look at her bipolar personality, the probable causes of the breakdown described in the book’s opening, and her resolution to be normal. Disappointingly, while the path from sanity to insanity is well-explored, the reverse direction is not, making the conclusion feel abrupt and premature. “I knew I didn’t want to be on medication; therefore, I decided on my own prognosis: I will not be crazy,” she writes. The rosy ending also strains believability, especially given the narrator’s admitted penchant for shaping her projected image to the outside world.
The stark portrait of a young woman who looks together from the outside but is falling apart on the inside, although the association isn’t exactly clear.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 179
Publisher: Entourage Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.
A fifth-grade New Orleans girl discovers a mysterious chrysalis containing an unexpected creature in this middle-grade novel.
Jacquelyn Marie Johnson, called Jackie, is a 10-year-old African-American girl, the second oldest and the only girl of six siblings. She’s responsible, smart, and enjoys being in charge; she likes “paper dolls and long division and imagining things she had never seen.” Normally, Jackie has no trouble obeying her strict but loving parents. But when her potted snapdragon acquires a peculiar egg or maybe a chrysalis (she dubs it a chrysalegg), Jackie’s strong desire to protect it runs up against her mother’s rule against plants in the house. Jackie doesn’t exactly mean to lie, but she tells her mother she needs to keep the snapdragon in her room for a science project and gets permission. Jackie draws the chrysalegg daily, waiting for something to happen as it gets larger. When the amazing creature inside breaks free, Jackie is more determined than ever to protect it, but this leads her further into secrets and lies. The results when her parents find out are painful, and resolving the problem will take courage, honesty, and trust. Dumas (Jaden Toussaint, the Greatest: Episode 5, 2017, etc.) presents a very likable character in Jackie. At 10, she’s young enough to enjoy playing with paper dolls but has a maturity that even older kids can lack. She’s resourceful, as when she wants to measure a red spot on the chrysalegg; lacking calipers, she fashions one from her hairpin. Jackie’s inward struggle about what to obey—her dearest wishes or the parents she loves—is one many readers will understand. The book complicates this question by making Jackie’s parents, especially her mother, strict (as one might expect to keep order in a large family) but undeniably loving and protective as well—it’s not just a question of outwitting clueless adults. Jackie’s feelings about the creature (tender and responsible but also more than a little obsessive) are similarly shaded rather than black-and-white. The ending suggests that an intriguing sequel is to come.
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943169-32-0
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Plum Street Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.
In the ninth book in the Bluford young-adult series, a young Latino man walks away from violence—but at great personal cost.
In a large Southern California city, 16-year-old Martin Luna hangs out on the fringes of gang life. He’s disaffected, fatherless and increasingly drawn into the orbit of the older, rougher Frankie. When a stray bullet kills Martin’s adored 8-year-old brother, Huero, Martin seems to be heading into a life of crime. But Martin’s mother, determined not to lose another son, moves him to another neighborhood—the fictional town of Bluford, where he attends the racially diverse Bluford High. At his new school, the still-grieving Martin quickly makes enemies and gets into trouble. But he also makes friends with a kind English teacher and catches the eye of Vicky, a smart, pretty and outgoing Bluford student. Martin’s first-person narration supplies much of the book’s power. His dialogue is plain, but realistic and believable, and the authors wisely avoid the temptation to lard his speech with dated and potentially embarrassing slang. The author draws a vivid and affecting picture of Martin’s pain and confusion, bringing a tight-lipped teenager to life. In fact, Martin’s character is so well drawn that when he realizes the truth about his friend Frankie, readers won’t feel as if they are watching an after-school special, but as though they are observing the natural progression of Martin’s personal growth. This short novel appears to be aimed at urban teens who don’t often see their neighborhoods portrayed in young-adult fiction, but its sophisticated characters and affecting story will likely have much wider appeal.
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 978-1591940173
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Townsend Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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